Blast to the Past: Santa Fe

I took an easy Denver to Alberquerque flight and was met by my co-trainer John Kongsvik, who drove me to Santa Fe. He put me up in a house just around the corner from his, and we spent the few days before the course started hanging out in his pleasant backyard, lounging in the hammock, meeting some of his friends, and listening to his favorite Mexican rock band Mana at a volume that the Ipod player stand certainly hadn't been programmed for. Basically doing about as little to prepare for an intensive course that I've ever done in my life! About all we did was divvy up who was doing which workshops, and spent the remainder of the time talking un peu en francais, chatting about student-centered teaching, comparing notes on SIT, and gossiping about who all we knew in common. It was very nice to be relaxed for a change going into an intensive course...

It had been one hassle after another for John in getting this course going... the College of Santa Fe had a new director and the course was literally on-again off-again for some time, playing havoc with both our plans. Eventually it was on-again... well, one course at least, the second summer course was cancelled, even though both were full at 12 with waiting lists no less. It was my first real time in Santa Fe and what a unique culture it was here! Not that I had too much time to do any real exploring, given the 12 hour plus workdays, but the little I gleaned was interesting. There was a mix of American, Mexican, and Indian backgrounds, making what a number of locals described as a genuine Santa Fe culture and perspective. Many buildings were in an adobe style, and the ones in the downtown were actually required to be, even if it happened to be a McDonalds or an office.

The first week working with John was incredibly eye-opening.... I'd never quite seen a teacher, or a person like him! It reminded me of what Gabriel Garcia Marquez said upon reading Franz Kafka for the first time... "No one ever told me that it was possible to write like this. If I had known that you were allowed to do this, I would have been a writer a long time ago." And sure enough, Marquez dropped everything to become a writer at that moment. It's the way I felt watching John teach-- I had never known that it was possible to teach like that. In one sense, it was extraordinarily inspiring and I felt like there was so much going on at deep and subtle levels that I wanted to absorb as much as possible in the short time of our course-- forget that I was the teacher trainer trying to help along the beginning teachers! I felt like there were so many layers of what he was doing and I wanted to see beneath as many as I could, which meant plenty of careful observing and inner questioning, or better yet, inner quiet. On the other hand, it was overwhelming at times, and very humbling. Which is always a good thing when worked through appropriately, though it also means that painful parts of one's own ego can come up. As Parker Palmer wrote, "we teach who we are," and to really delve into one's own teaching practice, if it's done in honesty, transparency takes place and it can lead to a profound questioning of who we are and what weaknesses and challenges get manifested through our teaching persona. To change this isn't an easy switch of donning a new jacket and pants, but can take some real inner work as well.

So all this came up as I watched how John presented the material through just about every learning modality there was; as he never answered a question but fully helped to resolve the participants' inquiries and seeing them satisfied, as he used humor to lower the affective filter and create a group dynamic, as he shifted his pronunciation and intonation to attract attention and take it away from himself, and as he filled in his breaks with extra workshops and stayed after the day's end to keep up an energy that I had no idea where it kept coming from.



After the first week, I was treated with a visit by my mom and our Nepali friends, who had just stopped in Salida for a July 4th celebration. Coming from Kathmandu we thought it would be nice to have them experience a small down Independence Day parade and festival. With John covering so many bases I didn't have as full work weekend as I might normally, so had plenty of time to sight-see with my family, and it ended up being the only time for that in my month in Santa Fe. We went to some museums and saw the downtown, which in many ways resembled various areas I'd seen of Costa Rica, Nicaragua, and Mexico. Perhaps the best part was the free Japanese spa we were treated to by my friend Linden, who happened to work there (called 10,000 Waves but recently downgraded to 1,000). I'm usually fairly critical of the American spa experience (and justifiably so after my 3-4 years in Japan), and this one hit the mark.... the best stateside I've been to. Subtle enough to just barely put an emphasis on a relaxing and calming hot water experience over the new age element.

Here is a picture of some member of the local police force who wanted to give a proper American welcome to our Nepali friends:


And here's a church we stopped at where Ba-Aama donated some money to light some candles. (One of the things I love about Indian-Nepali customs is there reverence towards any religious tradition... part of this stems from not wanting to be "wrong" and having a better chance to being right by contributing to all beliefs, and part of it comes from seeing the oneness of all religious or spiritual sense of devotion)

I was now staying with John... the home where I had been staying the first three weeks had me sharing my dishes with the animals, and things even stranger... finally, on the last day of the course, somehow John and I came up with an idea to "trick" the participants into dancing as much as possible and recording it on film, then mixing it to dance music on my Mac. I thought it was a pretty funny idea, though when I woke up the next morning, I was tired from a full course and decided if John didn't remember, I'd let it go-- also, knowing myself to be all or nothing with no middle ground when creative projects came around, I didn't know if I'd have the energy to see this one through. When John reminded me that we needed to record ourselves dancing in the car to put on the tape later, I knew it was all over. The day was a riot and I spent more time editing and shooting and planning for the video than anything course-related. Within a day the video was all shot and edited and the participants howled when we showed them it. There was so much dancing snuck in-- with workshops, practice teaching, feedback, break time--- it gives the impression that that's about all we did the entire month.



See if you can catch it here, click!